It is true, there is customer service in France, if you know where how to get it ;-). We ordered furniture in IKEA and this is how we got customer service. There are more examples of this trick working.
When we bought our furniture at Ikea we had to get it delivered because it was too big for our car. So we went to the counter for delivery. The guy told us we were outside the express delivery zone and we would be called for a date. On the date deadline there was no call so the Monday after I decided to give them a call to find out where our stuff was. Especially because our stuff contained a bed we needed for the next weekend as we were having guests over.
A colleague of mine impersonated me and called the Ikea with me present. After many questions we found that our stuff was at a local transporting company and we called them. They told us they had just received it couldn’t possibly deliver it before next weekend. It would be at least 2 weeks. Their schedule had no room for a same week delivery. So I told my colleague to push, it didn’t work. Then I told my colleague to ask them on what the guests would be sleeping that weekend. All of a sudden this lady said: OK next Friday in the morning. You can imagine my face.
This happened to us several times. The initial answer is no but when you push and try a little harder it works out. See also my post about buying a car. We were in Mc Donalds last Friday and Maaike was almost sent out because she was occupying a table without food (I was getting it). After some explaining there was no problem at all. Just another example. It doesn’t work for every case of course. Usually taking the following attitude helps a lot: “O great servant of the company my life is in your hands, I know I am wrong but how can I continue???”. How do I solve this problem? What can I do?
It worked for getting our furniture, our car, and even our Mc Donalds table.